Tape printing devices, capable of printing a character string on a print tape made of an adhesive print sheet (with an adhesive agent previously applied on its back) and a releasable sheet which are bonded together to be releasable, are well known. The tape printing devices of this type are widely used for office use, home use, etc. because of their high usability allowing users to print a title, caption, etc. on the surface of a print sheet easily and beautifully. After printing a title, caption, etc. on the print tape, a user peels the print sheet away from the releasable sheet and sticks the print sheet (i.e. a label) on the spine of a file, videotape, etc.
Meanwhile, with the progress of computers and network technologies of recent years, there are many situations where numbers of plugs at ends of cables are plugged into numbers of sockets of a device. As a way to prevent faulty wiring in such cases, it is effective to put a label (with a character string printed thereon for identification) on each cable to be plugged into a socket.
Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No.HEI06-247431 (pages 5–7, Table 1) (hereinafter referred to as a “document #1”) has proposed a tape printing device which can set a necessary “wound part” in a label to be wound around a cable and print identical character strings on parts of the label outside the wound part in the lengthwise direction of the print tape. By winding the label (after being printed on by the tape printing device) around the cable while sticking its both ends together, the user can more surely recognize a socket into which the cable should be plugged.
However, when such a label printed on by the tape printing device of the document #1 is stuck on a cable, the part(s) printed with the character strings protrudes from the cable and that deteriorates the usability of the cable.
As a device capable of avoiding the above problem, Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No.HE106-320826 (pages 5–10, FIG. 14) (hereinafter referred to as a “document #2”) has proposed a tape printing device which can print a character string while rotating it from the lengthwise direction of the print tape by 90 degrees, by which a label having a character string printed in the width direction of the print tape can be created. Further, by cutting the print tape to a length suitable for winding it around the cable, a label leaving no part protruding from the cable can be created.